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CD/Digital releases

  • CD/Digital releases

    Jonas Sjøvaag – Commuter Music

    by 5:4 April 29, 2020 • 11:05
    April 29, 2020 • 11:05

    i don’t know if it’s a weird kind of defocused, more-easily-distracted side-effect of the lockdown, but lately i’ve been finding it easiest to engage with mid-length albums where i can immerse myself for half an hour or so. Happily, quite a few of these have found their way to me …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Michel Roth – Im Bau; Decoder Ensemble – Big Data

    by 5:4 April 20, 2020 • 16:42
    April 20, 2020 • 16:42

    Two discs from the Wergo label have lately been getting me thinking a lot about the relationship between content and meaning. Im Bau is the title of an electroacoustic monodrama by Swiss composer Michel Roth that takes its starting point from a short story by Franz Kafka (Der Bau). Quite …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    The Hafler Trio – An Answer

    by 5:4 March 14, 2020 • 05:00
    March 14, 2020 • 05:00

    Let’s turn our attention to drones. The respective roles of time and material are perhaps nowhere more controversial – and polarising – than in drone-based music. Even if you find yourself drawn into the complexities of one form of drone, another can push you away with its relative monotony. For …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Chubby Wolf – The Last Voices

    by 5:4 March 3, 2020 • 05:00
    March 3, 2020 • 05:00

    The next piece i’m exploring in this year’s Lent Series is The Last Voices by Danielle Baquet-Long, who released her solo work under the name Chubby Wolf. At 84 minutes long, it’s by far her longest piece, and the more i’ve spent time with it over the years, the more …

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  • CD/Digital releasesLent Series

    Kenneth Kirschner – January 1, 2019

    by 5:4 February 26, 2020 • 05:00
    February 26, 2020 • 05:00

    It’s the first day of Lent, and also therefore the start of this year’s 5:4 Lent Series. Three years ago my focus was on miniature works, and for 2020 i’m going in the opposite direction, exploring compositions that occupy larger-scale durations. However, this is not simply about pieces that are …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Jennifer Walshe – A Late Anthology of Early Music Vol. 1: Ancient to Renaissance

    by 5:4 February 19, 2020 • 17:45
    February 19, 2020 • 17:45

    There are times, believe it or not dear reader, when i honestly wonder if i’m starting to get a little bit jaded. Listening can feel like a chore, and the endless parade of the novelty and the newfangled can blur into a torrent of ‘musica generica’ that becomes (at best) …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir – Vernacular; Siggi String Quartet – South of the Circle; Iceland Symphony Orchestra – Concurrence

    by 5:4 January 17, 2020 • 11:17
    January 17, 2020 • 11:17

    In just over a week’s time Iceland’s premier new music festival, the Dark Music Days, will be up and running again, and once again i’ll be heading off to Reykjavík to immerse myself in some of the goings-on. Details about the festival can be found here, and for any UK …

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  • CD/Digital releasesFestiveThematic series

    London Choral Sinfonia – O Holy Night

    by 5:4 December 18, 2019 • 05:00
    December 18, 2019 • 05:00

    The solstice and the season of winter are fast approaching, so over the next week as we transition through i’m going to explore music that taps into some of the aspects of this remarkable time of year. By that i don’t just mean ‘Christmas music’ – which, let’s face it, …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Roland Kayn – Scanning

    by 5:4 December 14, 2019 • 22:25
    December 14, 2019 • 22:25

    There aren’t many new releases that require you to free up huge chunks of time in your schedule, but then Roland Kayn isn’t like many composers. Two years ago, 14 hours were required to explore the vast expanse of his A Little Electronic Milky Way of Sound, which i ended …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Fovea Hex – The Salt Garden III

    by 5:4 December 6, 2019 • 05:00
    December 6, 2019 • 05:00

    It all began with a trilogy. This was back in 2005 when, over the course of three successive years, Irish musical entity Fovea Hex (singer Clodagh Simonds, together with a changing roster of collaborators) put out the trio of EPs – Bloom, Huge and Allure – that would become collectively …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Charles Uzor – mimicri/ pieces with tape

    by 5:4 December 5, 2019 • 06:00
    December 5, 2019 • 06:00

    Another interesting release from the NEOS label is mimicri/ pieces with tape, a double album featuring nine works by Nigerian-born composer Charles Uzor. As the name suggests, most of the music is electroacoustic, together with a chamber piece and two works for choir, and the majority of them are relatively …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Gunnar Geisse – The Wannsee Recordings

    by 5:4 December 3, 2019 • 12:18
    December 3, 2019 • 12:18

    The Wannsee Recordings is a double album by German composer and improviser Gunnar Geisse, released on the NEOS label earlier this year. In some ways, that sentence is about as certain as i can be about the album because, to be honest, i was as impressed by it as i …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Jakob Ullmann – Fremde Zeit Addendum 5; Stefan Fraunberger – Quellgeister #3 Bussd

    by 5:4 October 30, 2019 • 12:27
    October 30, 2019 • 12:27

    i’ve been spending time lately with new releases from two composers towards whose work i’ve hitherto felt almost universally positive. There’s something a little nerve-racking about this, inducing anxiety – and, to an extent, incredulity – that the unfamiliar new will be able to live up to the marvellous old. …

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  • AnniversariesCD/Digital releasesRetrospectives

    Four aspects of Erkki-Sven Tüür: Spectrums

    by 5:4 October 18, 2019 • 19:11
    October 18, 2019 • 19:11

    Birthdays and anniversaries provide an excellent opportunity to stop and look back, and contemplate everything that’s happened along the path of time that leads to here and now. This week – on Wednesday, in fact – marked the 60th birthday of Estonia’s most unconventional and irrepressible composer, Erkki-Sven Tüür. i’ve …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra – Orchestral Works

    by 5:4 September 23, 2019 • 18:04
    September 23, 2019 • 18:04

    i’ve written a lot about Estonian music on 5:4 in the last few years, but i’m conscious that i’ve given relatively little attention to the other two Baltic states. That’s more to do with a lack of opportunities than a lack of enthusiasm, but while i’m still relatively clueless about …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    relief – The Gloaming

    by 5:4 September 7, 2019 • 22:00
    September 7, 2019 • 22:00

    An album that i’ve been returning to again and again in recent months is The Gloaming, the debut release from relief, nom de guerre of composer Chris Berkes. As debuts go – a 42-minute work cast in four broad movements – it’s certainly impressive. A title like The Gloaming, with …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Zbigniew Karkowski – Encumbrance

    by 5:4 August 9, 2019 • 16:06
    August 9, 2019 • 16:06

    In recent years, one of the most vividly memorable Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festivals was 2017, when the work of Polish composer Zbigniew Karkowski was prominently featured. Huddersfield is in fact the only place in the UK that i’ve ever had the opportunity to experience Karkowski’s music performed live, which suggests …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Esa-Pekka Salonen – Cello Concerto

    by 5:4 July 15, 2019 • 16:27
    July 15, 2019 • 16:27

    One of my highlights from last year came at the end of the summer, during the final concert at the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm. An occasion given over to celebrating composer and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen (which i reviewed elsewhere), the concert included a performance of Salonen’s Cello Concerto given …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Juhani Silvola – Post-biological wildlife

    by 5:4 July 8, 2019 • 17:23
    July 8, 2019 • 17:23

    We might call it “conjectural anthropology”. What i’m referring to here is music (or any art, for that matter) that seeks to fabricate and/or otherwise be inspired by fictitious notions of organic life and activity. We find examples of this in, among other places, the strange electronic languages being uttered …

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  • CD/Digital releases

    Clemens von Reusner – Electroacoustic Works

    by 5:4 July 5, 2019 • 15:00
    July 5, 2019 • 15:00

    In contemporary electronic music it can be hard to find a good balance between a robust sense of purpose while retaining the possibility of spontaneity. To an extent, the sculpted nature of fixed media works tacitly tends to enforce the former over the latter such that, like the dialogue in …

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Nils Henrik Asheim: Lydkilder Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices Music Beyond Airports: appraising ambient music Simon Cummings | 間 Studies vol. 6

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5:4
  • About
    • Other writings
  • Patrons
  • The Lists
    • Listening History
    • Complete List of Ratings
    • Compositions explored on 5:4
    • Albums and EPs reviewed on 5:4
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    • Best Albums of the Years
    • The Proms premières – Poll results
  • The Dialogues
  • Mixtapes
    • Mixtapes
    • The Isolation Mixtapes
    • Mystery Mixtapes
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